Okay last night I had such a conflict in my life.
I was wearing this brand new really cute set.
It was pink and like really cozy.
But I was also making a red sauce and for some reason, even on simmer that sauce was bubbling all over the place and it popped up big giant bubbles of red tomato sauce all over my brand new light pink set and I was really angry for a second.
But then I said, it's actually fine because I use Tide Free and Gentle.
And Tide Free and Gentle has your back, honey.
It delivers a powerful clean without perfumes, dyes, or irritants.
It's 100% hypoallergenic care, which is good because I also have sensitive skin.
There's a lot going on in my life.
Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash.
And I'm Alayna.
And this is Morbid for a second time recording the same episode.
Oh you guys, nothing's worse, nothing's worse, nothing in the whole world, the whole galaxy, ever so many things are a lot worse.
But we recorded the entire episode yeah, and right after we said huh, that was a good episode.
And then we said, oh no, or nor.
My mic was unplugged.
Yeah, it was a collective pod lab mistake, because we were all cleaning the pod lab and your microphone got unplugged and none of us replugged it in.
None of us.
A bunch of buffoons in here.
So it was all three of our faults.
Yeah.
And here we are.
Let's go.
All right.
Well, before we get into the case, we do have some bid nasty at the top of the show, honey.
Bid nasty.
We got bid nasty.
Tickets go on sale at noon today if you're listening on Monday.
If you're nasty.
If you're nasty.
Yeah.
Tickets for our live show, the second show that we added, which will be Sunday, September 28th at the Wilba.
Those tickets are on sale at noon today, Monday, September 28th.
Eighth.
Yep.
It's the eighth.
It's the eighth.
It's the eighth.
So that's exciting.
It's going to be the same show as the show on the 26th.
Yep.
Just so you know, so you don't think it's going to be a different show.
It's not.
It'll be the same one, but we can't wait to see you there.
I'm so excited.
It's going to be fun as hell.
A lot of you that weekend.
Yeah.
I can't wait.
It's going to be exciting.
Also, our bonus episode is coming out this Friday, September... 12th?
12th.
12th.
September 12th.
And we're going to be talking about Unknown Number, the high school catfish.
I have now watched that documentary twice.
Everybody do yourself a fucking favor.
Sit down, get comfortable, and get ready for your jaw to be on the motherfucking ground.
The flow.
I knew going into it, the twist.
Yeah.
And still I was somehow like, is it that person?
Or is it that person?
I almost said this is shock.
This is shock and awe.
Yeah, it's going to be exciting to talk about.
It's going to be a little crazy to talk about.
But we thought it deserved its own bonus episode.
We were going to do it along with the Amy Bradley documentary, like do a little twofer in the bonus episode.
But honestly, they're going to get their own.
Yeah, there's a lot to talk about with both, because the Amy Bradley documentary we were talking about it after we said we were going to do that.
And then I was like, well, the Amy Bradley documentary is like three episodes.
Very like in depth and there's a lot of theories and there's just a lot of stuff to talk about.
So we didn't want to cram it into a bonus episode.
And same thing with Unknown Number High School Catfish.
So get ready for Friday.
Go watch that.
We'll be talking about it.
And remember.
Bonus episodes are once a month and they are in addition to the regular episodes.
They are not taking up one of the episodes in the week.
You will get three episodes in one week once a month.
Aren't you so lucky?
Yeah.
Okay, so let's get into the episode again.
This is a great episode.
Yeah, now you know.
I can say that right off the bat.
Thank you so much.
Right off the bat.
I appreciate it.
From the jump, this is a wild episode.
It is.
It's not as wild as part uh three yeah, but it's pretty wild, but wild in a different way.
Yeah, and i think i said this at the at some point in part three.
The way i split them, i feel like i had to because so many different events take place, yeah.
So i was like, let me just, it makes perfect sense the way it's split because they are really like groupings of events that happened.
They are differently and independently on different days.
On Last time we talked, basically the destruction of the SLA had occurred, with that house fire and the standoff between Where Grandma Chrissy was so lit she slept through.
Grandma Chrissy.
Don't forget about Grandpa Joe.
Grandpa Tom.
I was thinking about Grandpa Joe from Willy Wonka.
Because I made a reference about that this morning.
To my mom.
I know.
Which sounds terrible, but it was really funny.
No, she thought it was hilarious.
We're from Boston.
We have a good sense of humor.
That's how we love each other.
She's in her little bed and I said, Ma, do you feel like Grandpa Joe?
She said, yeah.
I do.
She thinks I'm hilarious.
So Grandpa Tom, who they had kidnapped. patty had the chance to leave multiple times at this point but stayed and doubled down after that house fire because she was so upset and now the sla like the remaining members and the new people they were scooping up claimed that they were a part of this kind of like overarching oh yeah organization which was the new world liberation front which um That's a lot of words, so I'm just going to call it the NWLF.
Yeah.
Thank you.
I feel like it's never a good thing when a smaller company gets eaten up by a bigger one.
No, it never is.
I feel like that's the kiss of death.
It is the kiss of death.
Anyway.
I mean, people, we've seen it happen.
Yeah.
You've seen it happen.
Many examples.
Everyone's seen it happen.
So throughout the summer of 1974 Bill, Emily and Patty managed to add, like I was just saying, a couple, you know a handful of new members to the SLA.
Yeah.
But it was with Bill leading, and it turned out that he was a far less effective leader than Donald DeFreeze had been.
I could see that.
Yeah.
And, like I said at the end of part three, the future of the SLA definitely seemed way more uncertain than it ever had.
And now, with pretty much anybody being able to operate in the name of the NWLF...
So many awful, violent occurrences were going down all over the United States.
There was bombings, assassination attempts.
And they're all yelling in the name of Yeah, even if it's not, Even if these acts are committed by individuals who are not part of the NWLF.
It's giving them a worse name than they already have.
It's like collateral damage.
They also didn't have a good name to begin with.
No.
Really is similar to so many things we know about.
Anyway.
So, fully aware of their disadvantaged position Bill, Emily and Patty decided to go on the run again.
Because remember, they're wanted as fuck.
Run.
Run.
Yeah, run so far away.
Over the course of the summer and fall, they traveled all around the United States.
They stayed with other activists or people who knew them and sympathized in New York Pennsylvania, plenty of places across the US where they were less likely to be recognized than they were in California.
And they told themselves it was all part of the effort to regroup and develop a new strategy.
Yeah, man.
But in all reality, they had absolutely no idea what to do next or how to bounce back from.
I mean, what was a devastating loss to them of losing six core SLA members, including the leader.
Yeah, no matter what, those were their friends, I suppose.
Yeah, not iconic people.
Yeah, for what they were doing.
Not great people, but yeah.
So they were broke, they were tired and at this point they were pretty much driven only by the will to survive.
Which, you know, aren't we all?
I'm driven by the will to survive.
Humans, you know.
So by January 1975, they decided to go back to California, which I was like, why?
I can tell them that's probably the wrong move.
Not only California, but they settled back in San Francisco, where everything had started like where they had kidnapped Patty almost a year earlier.
Bold move.
Let's see if it works out for them.
One of the boldest.
Yeah, let's see.
So in the course of their travels, they picked up a couple new members, including Mike Borton, James Kilgore, Steve Salaya, and Kathleen Salaya, also known as Kathy.
Kath.
Kath.
The SLA and the stories about Patty Hearst had kind of stopped taking up the front pages of the newspaper and you know radio stations were talking about it less and less.
And that was pissing Bill off because he's the new leader of the SLA.
He wants the SLA known.
So he decided that it was time for the group to reassert themselves and make their presence known.
Or you could just like go about your lives.
Or you could just like... Stop trying to make a name for this random thing you made up.
Yeah.
Just... It's okay.
You can move on.
I'm sure somebody was like, I'm tired of this, Grandpa.
I'm tired of this, Grandpa.
And Bill was like, too dang bad.
And Bill said, too dang bad.
Well, that's too dang bad.
So...
But, well, that's the thing.
He said, that's too dang bad.
And he said, we need some money for guns and supplies.
So on February 25th 1975, Michael Borton and James Kilgore entered the Guild Bank in San Francisco armed with shotguns and revolvers.
Because they did have guns, they just wanted more.
Of course.
We always want more.
Of everything.
Remember, they had like a pile of guns in Part 3, but they lost those.
Oops.
And then also they lost a ton in a...
The big house fire.
Oh, yeah.
That Grandma Chrissy slept through.
Yeah.
Our Queen Chrissy.
Yeah.
Pour one out.
Definitely pour it out.
Pour it out.
Yeah, don't.
So, Bill.
Drink some water, man.
Yeah.
Hydrate.
Get a liquid IV.
Not even sponsored, but we love them.
So Bill spent weeks planning this robbery and they all agreed that they wanted to use the same method that they had used in the Hibernia robbery the year before.
I mean, it worked.
It worked, yeah.
So they figured, let's be out in 90 seconds.
We don't want to hurt anybody.
That's not our intention.
Sick.
And they said you know, hopefully we'll make it out with enough to fund ourselves for the foreseeable future.
I wonder.
Well, the plan did work relatively well.
They moved in.
Also, you don't wonder because you couldn't even say it earnestly.
I said, I wonder.
I wonder.
Well, in case for those of you out there who don't know.
Who are wondering.
The plan worked well.
They moved in the allotted amount of time, that 90 seconds.
Yeah.
90 seconds.
It was 90 seconds.
That's like a minute and a half.
That's less than two minutes.
Yeah.
You corrected a minute and a half.
Better way of saying that.
Then you were correct less than two minutes.
That's crazy.
That just hit me how crazy that is.
So they moved in that time.
But the problem was the Guild Bank was not nearly as large or as busy as the Hibernia Bank.
So they only came away with about $3,000.
Which is not a lot for your trouble.
Yeah, it really wasn't.
A lot of trouble.
They still considered the operation a success.
I mean, they were $3,000 richer.
I'm not going to complain about that.
No one got hurt.
And it proved, if nothing else to Bill and the others, that even without Donald DeFreeze and the original SLA members they were still capable of pulling off a robbery and doing it pretty well.
And it's like, okay.
I mean, not great.
Like we don't want to rob.
That's not in my 2026 goals.
I don't think like that's not how you lock in, you know, like you don't just start robbing.
But you did.
It was little.
Maybe that's your sweet spot.
Maybe, you know.
Probably.
But I feel like they went too hard.
They do.
But I don't know.
Well, you do.
Because now, energized and encouraged by the success of the robbery at the guild bank, Elaine is foreshadowing a little bit.
Yeah, I am.
The group immediately started planning their next operation, with eyes on a larger bank and a larger hall.
See, because no one can ever just be, like, happy with a little bit.
Nobody can just be happy.
Just take what you got.
Which sometimes it's good to want more and like be like charging forward for more and want to be better and all that.
Totally.
Yeah.
In most circumstances.
Yeah.
And this one.
Not bank robberies.
I'm going to encourage you to rest on your laurels here.
That's the, there's always, there's a time and a place for everything.
Yeah.
And this is the time and place to rest on your laurels.
Yeah, for laurels.
So throughout the first few weeks of April, Patty and Emily they were helping out by scoping out a new location for the robbery.
There was the Bank of America in Marysville, a small town about 40 miles outside of Sacramento.
Patty scoped that out and she actually drew a fucking map from memory, like a floor plan.
Which, like, damn, put a pin in that skill.
Yeah.
And maybe use it for better.
Maybe use it for taking tests.
Yeah, because that's pretty great.
Yeah.
And then there was also the Crocker National Bank in Carmichael.
And that was also another suburb just outside of Sacramento.
So after weighing their options, they decided, let's go with Crocker Bank because it was busier.
And as far as they could tell, it didn't look like they had security cameras.
And I bet they weren't hiding them.
Yeah.
No, don't ever do that.
Yeah, never.
I'm like, obviously they're going to do that, especially like this time period.
Yeah, put them in places that you're not going to immediately recognize.
Yeah, well, this is like the mid-70s when California, I think, was like the bank...
We talked about it in a recent case, that crazy robbery that I covered.
Yeah.
It's like the bank robbery capital of the world.
Yeah, or at least like the U.S.
Yeah.
But anyway, they didn't think they had security cameras, so that was pretty stupid.
But, with their choices made, Bill started devising a strategy for what they all expected would be a big step up in terms of reward.
So on the morning of April 21st, 42-year-old Myrna Opsahl drove to her church to pick up the collection money.
And then she took it over to Crocker Bank like she had done countless times before.
As she walked into the bank, she had a small adding machine in one hand and the deposit in the other.
And so a young man, later identified as Mike Borton, held open the door for her.
And she said, thank you.
And she stepped inside.
You know what would have been nice of Mike Borton to do?
To tell her not to come in?
Hey, girly, you shouldn't come in here right now.
Yep.
Just like turn her away.
You got 90 seconds.
Get it done.
Get out.
And this nice lady doesn't have to be part of this.
And you would think that less people would make it even easier.
Like you have less people to manage.
Exactly.
Just tell her, hold on a second.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You could even act as like a secure, like a bank employee and be like oh we, just like you can come in in like 10 minutes.
We're just doing something.
Yeah.
You know, make something up.
Exactly.
But no, he held open the door.
He said, come on in.
That's such a good point.
Yeah.
So she at that point didn't notice the three other individuals who had slipped in behind her.
And it probably really wouldn't have made a difference if she had anyway.
Yeah, myrna hadn't even made it very far into the lobby of the bank when she heard a man's voice yell everybody down on the ground, get the on the floor.
Oh, i can't imagine the fear that would shoot through your body at that moment.
Fear and like anger, because you'd be like because having another, like a pure human being, be like get the on the floor, i'd be like Fuck you.
Like, you know, like immediately I just like, who the fuck do you think you are?
I love that we have such different reactions.
I'd piss my pants.
Oh, I would piss my pants.
Like, make no mistake.
I would shit myself.
Like there is.
But you'd be so mad too.
But there would be this like little and probably later the anger would really hit where you're like fuck you coming in here demanding shit of me.
Like, who are you?
You're my, you're, I'm an adult.
Like, get out of here.
You can't tell me what to do.
Oh, piss me off.
Yeah, I'd be terrified and angry and upset and all kinds of things.
All the feelings.
Well, by that time, Borton Kilgore Salia, Kathy Salia and Emily Harris had all covered their faces with ski masks and they were waving their guns in the air.
Okay.
Okay.
So, having unsheathed her shotgun from underneath her large coat, Emily Harris started counting down the time, because they want to be out of there in 90 seconds, just as they had done in the previous two robberies.
Startled and confused though, because this is a really fucking jarring experience.
Myrna Opsal hesitated when Borton told everybody to get on the ground.
And she also was holding an adding machine and the deposit.
So she was kind of like fumbling with everything.
And was also probably so scared that she didn't get down fast enough.
Yeah, people freeze sometimes.
Oh, I freeze every time I'm scared of something.
Yeah, it's a thing.
So at that moment, Emily Harris raised her gun and pointed it at Myrna, hoping the threat would motivate her to get down.
But it didn't.
She's terrified.
And everything happened so quickly.
Without any warning, all sound in the lobby was blocked out as the shotgun rang out.
As Emily Harris pulled the trigger.
Emily Harris pulled the trigger and sent a slug into Myrna Opsal's side, which immediately shot her down to the ground.
So you decided that it was important to shoot this woman who just came from her church, who was unarmed and holding an adding machine.
Yep.
And was terrified?
Yep.
Like that felt like a threat?
Well, no.
That's the thing.
Like where was the threat you felt?
Fucking bitch.
Where's the threat there?
Because obviously she's just scared.
She's terrified.
She's probably just like a deer in headlights.
Yeah.
Like, come on.
Like you said, not threatening at all.
No.
Also, like, I hate saying anything like this, but you could have just pushed her down.
Yeah.
Instead of shooting her.
Because your whole goal, allegedly, was to not hurt anybody.
Not hurt anyone.
And it doesn't sound like that was the goal.
Yeah.
You did not go in there with the intention of being, like, not hurting someone.
No.
I won't buy that for one second.
Not at all.
There's nothing that could get me to shoot an innocent person with a shotgun.
Like it just wouldn't happen.
It's also such a convenient story and like, oh, I didn't want to hurt anybody.
It was just a mistake when the whole entire point of this was to get the SLA's name back in the papers.
And back at the top of the, you know, top of news and media.
And I love it because like, and we'll get to it, but she loves to you know.
Disengage from the actual act.
Emily Harris is an asshole.
She should know that.
She should know that.
So in that moment everybody in the lobby, including the other robbers, the other members of the SLA, seemed stunned by what had happened.
But Michael Borton quickly got things under control and he just started shouting for everybody to get their faces on the floor.
With the order restored, then Kathy resumed going down the teller line, while Emily just kept counting down the seconds.
And on the floor in front of her, Myrna Opsal was slumped in a rapidly expanding pool of blood.
Like, she's dying on the floor right now.
Yeah, she's got shot in the stomach with a shotgun.
When they hit 90 seconds.
Emily called out the time and everybody abandoned their positions and made a break for it.
Outside, Michael Borton jumped into one car and got the hell out of there.
And Patty and the others followed close behind in her van.
Later, Patty said there was a very odd tension and an odd silence as they drove.
You don't say.
She said everybody kind of removed their masks and just looked like freaked out.
The silence was finally broken, though, by stupid bitch Emily, who said, maybe she'll live.
And James Kilgore looked at her and said, no, I saw her.
Like, she's not going to make it.
Back inside the staff of the bank, who's also traumatized, they scramble to lock the door and call the police, while also going to Myrna's side to help her.
Bank teller Rachel Harp said later, when we got the towels to put on the wounds, they just went right through her.
Oh, that.
So she was just.
She was like ripped apart.
So the ambulance arrived quickly and transported Myrna to the hospital American River Hospital and she was rushed into surgery.
And immediately they recognized her as the wife of one of the emergency doctors on the staff, Dr Trigva Apsal.
And the staff contacted him immediately.
So he rushed to the hospital and joined in on the effort to save his wife's life.
That is unthinkable.
I can't imagine the absolute, just like, desperation he must have felt.
And...
You're sitting there trying to do these clinical things that are going to save somebody's life.
But this isn't just somebody.
This is your wife.
This is your life partner.
I can't even conceive of that.
No.
So unfortunately, though, Myrna was almost dead when she arrived at the hospital.
And there was nothing they could have done to save her.
The damage had already been done.
And remember, she was laying on the floor while the rest of this went down.
Like if she was going to be saved, she would have needed help, attention right away, right away yeah, and she was robbed of that.
So in the end uh, dr trigva had to be pulled away from her because he just kept trying to do more things to save her, but they were like it's not gonna work, that's so sad, and they had to move her to the morgue.
Oh, at that point, the remaining members of the sla had managed to avoid any direct experiences with that kind of violence.
The, the people who were part of the sla now weren't there when marcus foster was murdered, and none of them had been at the house in south central when the police raided it.
And they were all very upset.
Most of them james kilgore blamed it on emily being nervous and fiddling with the gun bill, and emily, on the other hand though, tried to play it off like it was just the price of revolution.
Emily, stupid bitch.
Emily literally said so.
What if she got shot?
Her husband's a doctor, she's a bourgeois pig.
Oh, shut the fuck up.
Like get.
She married some.
Oh, she married someone who went to medical school.
She married someone.
That makes her like, like that justifies her being shot in the side while she's unarmed and doing nothing wrong.
No, it just makes so you feel better about yourself.
Yeah, exactly.
She married a doctor who saves people, an ER doctor who saves people's lives who, if you were in a life-threatening incident or any kind of incident, would save your life.
In fact, if something had happened during the course of that robbery and you were brought to the hospital where he worked, he would actually have an oath to take care of you and save your life.
But...
But, yeah.
She's supposed to be the asshole here, Myrna.
Mother.
A mother.
Yep.
Who did... Innocent mother doing nothing wrong.
Yep.
Holding an adding machine and terrified.
And holding... Deserved it.
Holding an adding machine in her church's deposit.
She deserved it.
Like, go fuck yourself.
It's just like, come on.
But your whole message is just completely gone.
Like any message you guys thought you had with that is like, bye.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, they reasoned, Bill and Emily, that if Myrna hadn't been standing there when the gun went off, James would have been shot.
So he would have been killed.
And it's like, okay, is that supposed to be like Myrna's a sacrifice here?
Oh, cool.
So the gun just went off.
Yeah, exactly.
You had no way to distance yourself from that act.
And also, maybe the gun shouldn't have gone off.
Maybe you shouldn't have pulled the trigger to shoot the gun.
In the first place, since you went in there not wanting to hurt anyone, and Myrna did fucking nothing to threaten you.
Maybe you guys all should have gotten a fucking job and stopped robbing banks.
Yeah, stop being dicks.
Exactly.
Well, despite their attempts at being the most nonchalant assholes on the planet, it was clear that the robbery had been botched and the death of Myrna the murder, I should say had shaken everybody.
They had all been hoping that the bank job also would get them about 100000, but in the end the takeaway was a little over 15000.
Wow.
So they're not even good at research.
They're not good at research, execution, errands.
Any of the above.
They're really bad at errands.
You remember from part three.
Yeah, they're wicked bad at errands.
Terrible.
So in the weeks and months that followed, they started laying low because now they're wanted.
And they'd all been identified by bank tellers as the remaining members of the SLA, including Patty.
So they were all wanted for armed robbery and murder.
By the summer of 1975, the NWLF was also claiming credit for the murder of Wilbert Popeye Jackson, who was president of the United Prison Union and actually a one-time associate of the SLA.
Oh, wow.
But he was killed along with his girlfriend.
So the fact that he had been killed Myrna Opsal had been killed during the robbery of the Crocker Bank all of that together caused everybody to be like what the fuck is going on here.
Like, you need to put a stop to these people just creating violence, inciting violence everywhere.
And it's like, there's no message here.
It's just violence for violence sake at this point.
Exactly.
So everybody was calling for law enforcement to just put an end to this, especially around California.
Yeah.
And within a few months, the main players in the NWLF, like the higher ranking people, started getting arrested, one after the other.
So it was only a matter of time before they started coming after the SLA.
So they spent.
The members of the SLA spent the summer studying the anarchist cookbook and perfecting their bomb making skills.
Losers.
But aside from a few bombs that they placed under police cars in San Francisco, that all failed to go off.
By the way, their activities went pretty much unnoticed because they were really bad at everything.
When they weren't developing their criminal skills.
Patty, Bill and Emily spent their time working on a manuscript manifesto they had been writing.
That word better show up in one of these.
You know a manifesto is always part of something like this.
Always.
Yeah.
But in a rather strange turn of events.
After almost two years of running and hiding, the months after the Crocker robbery were kind of the closest thing to normal life any of them had experienced in a while.
It's like you can feel this way.
Yeah.
Like continue doing stupid shit.
Exactly.
Exactly.
It might have been the feeling of normalcy and the kind of stability that was going on that caused them to let their guard down.
Oops.
Or who knows if it was subconsciously, because everybody wanted out of this and wanted it to come to an end.
But whatever the case, in late August the relationships within the group were starting to deteriorate, especially the one between Patty and the Harris's.
In early September, she decided she was going to leave the safe house that they established and she wanted to move in with Steve Zelaya and Wendy Yoshimura.
And she actually said that she wanted to cut Bill and Emily off entirely.
Wow.
She didn't even want to talk to them anymore.
Damn.
Yeah.
Before that, they had kind of settled into like a weird domestic routine.
I don't know like what the ins and outs of their relationship was, but it sounds like It was a little bit strange.
Like they were all kind of like living together.
And so in like relationships we can't define.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
But it also quickly started to kind of resemble the relationship that Patty had with Steve, her old fiance, because it was just mundane and, you know, boring.
Yeah.
And remember, that was not for her at all.
No.
So that's kind of why she wanted to leave.
Yeah.
So ironically, though, in the end, their mundane day-to-day proved to be their undoing.
Throughout the investigation, FBI agents had identified and located Kathy Celaya, and they identified her as the link between the Crocker bank robbery and the original SLA members, including Patty Hearst.
Oh, damn.
So once they were able to determine where she was living, they figured it was only a matter of time before Kathy would lead them to the others.
Mm-hmm.
So they had agents watching Kathy around the clock.
Damn.
They followed her everywhere she went at all times.
Wow.
And eventually that paid off.
On the morning of September 18th, FBI agents spotted Bill Harris at a laundromat.
They followed him back to his apartment.
A laundromat.
Just, like I told you, mundane-ass life.
So normal.
So they followed him back to his apartment and they quickly arrested Emily and Bill there.
So disappointed but undaunted FBI lead agent Charlie Bates scheduled a press conference for later that afternoon and he started preparing his statement, which probably would have been something like we're pleased to announce the arrest of Bill and Emily Harris and you know we remain committed to finding Patricia Hearst but we haven't done that yet.
Yeah.
And it probably would have gone up that way had it not been for two thorough investigators who decided to circle back and check the address that they had for Steve Celaya.
I love when it's like good investigative work.
Yeah, love that.
So later that afternoon San Francisco Police Inspector Tim Casey and FBI Special Agent Tom Patton, along with two additional SFPD officers, drove over to the apartment of 625 Morse Street in to take one last look before they headed into that press conference that very afternoon.
I love that.
There was two officers watching the front door and Casey and Patton crept around the back porch where, through a dirty window, they could see Wendy just showing some letters to Patty at the kitchen table.
I love it.
Just so, no idea.
Mundane as fuck.
No idea.
Wendy had just got up from the table to go get a glass of water and the two women heard the sound of breaking glass.
As Patton broke down the door, burst into the kitchen, pointed his gun at Wendy and shouted to Patty freeze or I'll blow her head off.
Wow.
Taste of your own medicine.
Yeah, not so fun being on the other side of that, huh?
No.
And, of course, in the year before, they had all gone over all these scenarios about how this could end and how they would.
You know they would run away or they would attack the police.
Oh, yeah.
It was going to be so cool, man.
They'd be badass motherfuckers.
But now that they were standing in that very moment, neither of them knew what to do.
Yeah.
Obviously.
Standing in the position that they have put other people in several times.
Yeah.
Standing in the position that Myrna was put in and she didn't know what to do.
Did you freeze?
Yep, maybe.
Yep.
So they didn't do anything.
No shootouts, no running.
They just put their hands up and surrendered.
It was all finally over.
Wow.
Kind of.
So, after more than a year on the run, with bombings, robberies and now a murder behind them, five members of the SLA, including the last of the original members, were all taken into custody with no incident.
When asked for a statement, Katherine Hurst, Patty's mom, told a reporter, they found Patty.
Thank God she's all right. but neither she or Randolph cared to really give any additional comment.
Probably understanding that their daughter was safe, but this was only the beginning of a very long process of trying to figure out what the fuck had happened here.
Because, I mean, this is a complex case.
Yeah, and Patty had been gone for almost a year, and they're still wondering...
Did she want to do all this?
Was she forced into doing all this?
Yeah, that's the thing.
We don't know.
And two things can be true at once.
Yeah, you know, and we'll definitely get into that.
Now, even though everybody surrendered without a fight, once the cameras were rolling and the recordings were running, Patty and the other members fell right back into their radical activist routine, being very performative.
Of course.
Everybody, from local journalists and cops and, you know, even the head of the FBI wanted to know the same thing.
Who was Patty Hearst now?
Was she the same girl who got kidnapped over a year ago and was just like carried away in the middle of the night?
Or had she really turned her back on where she had come from and joined the SLA?
And as she stepped out of the car at the LA FBI building, she stood there and held up a raised fist in the air, which indicated that the latter was the truth.
Yep.
I think there's a picture of that, too.
Yeah, I think so.
So during their booking and this is just the most fucking obnoxious shit all five members of the SLA were characteristically defiant.
Patty gave her name as Tanya, and when they asked her what her occupation was, she told them urban guerrilla.
I would have laughed really hard.
I would have probably been really fucking annoyed by that.
Urban gorilla.
Yeah, you're like, I don't have that.
Why don't you tell me you're an unemployed asshole who runs amok and kills people?
Now, unlike the others who had absolutely no money for a lawyer, Randolph Hearst, Patty's father hired a pack of the nation's best defense attorneys.
And he comprised a team that would eventually be led by F Lee Bailey, who is the notorious defense attorney.
He represented Albert DeSalvo, who confessed to being the Boston Strangler.
Sam Shepard, who we've covered before, too.
He was accused of murdering his wife in the middle of the night.
And obviously F. Lee Bailey would go on to represent O.J., O.J.
Simpson in the 90s.
Yeah.
So that was a big deal.
Yeah.
And in the days that followed, the investigation mostly focused on Patty.
Everybody wanted to know, had she been brainwashed?
What had happened here?
It was obviously just a matter of curiosity for the public, and you know like we're all just nosy motherfuckers.
Of course.
But it was also pretty relevant when it came to the question of if she could be held responsible for the crimes that she had participated in while she was part of them, or at least living with them.
Yeah.
According to sports activist Jack Scott, who had actually spent a lot of time with the group just before the Crocker robbery.
He said Patty joined the Sembionese Liberation Army of her own accord and proved herself in the Hibernia robbery the previous year.
Yeah, I mean...
That's true.
But on the other side of the argument was Patty's family, and obviously her defense team, who said she was in an incredibly fragile state when she was arrested and it was clear that she was not acting of her own accord.
And that can also kind of be true.
Yeah.
Like I can see both sides of this completely.
Like we were saying earlier, I think two things can be true at once.
Yeah.
But F. Lee Bailey told reporters her situation is deteriorating swiftly in the San Mateo jail.
It will serve no purpose to have her mental condition deteriorate to the point where she cannot stand trial for the foreseeable future.
Ultimately she was deemed fit to stand trial, so her mental state obviously wasn't deteriorating that badly.
Yeah.
And a judge deemed that her recorded confessions that she had sent to her parents and the press, like all those recordings that had been sent throughout this, were admissible now in this trial.
Oh, damn.
Yeah.
In January 1976 she went on trial for the robbery of the Hibernia bank robbery the previous year, which wasn't so crazy.
It was, you know, a standard bank robbery.
No one was hurt, but nobody was killed.
I should say people were hurt.
But she was the only member who could be identified and she was the only person to be tried for that robbery.
Wow.
Which, when you think about it, is crazy.
That is crazy.
Arguing in her defense, F Lee Bailey said that yes, it was true she had participated, but she had only done so under extreme duress.
He said all of the activities Patty had participated in during her time with the SLA were done out of fear for her life.
Most any other victim would comply with their kidnapper to make sure that they were safe.
Which is true.
Which is true.
That is a true statement.
Then the prosecution hired Dr Harry Kozol to evaluate Patty and determine if she had acted of her own volition or not.
But within a few days Patty and F Lee Bailey complained to the court that Dr Kozol had been aggressive, abusive and had driven Patty to tears.
Damn.
In a 45-minute interview that halted the trial entirely, Patty told the judge that he quote implied she had arranged her own kidnapping.
Asked if she was proud of having robbed a bank, which I think is a valid question.
Dwelt upon the skin pigmentation of Donald DeFreeze, which I think is absolutely ridiculous.
And then he called her a little girl.
Which would piss me off.
That would have pissed me off to the end of the earth.
Same.
So he flatly rejected the claims.
And in the end it really didn't matter, because on March 11th 1976 a jury found her guilty of armed robbery and Patty Hearst was sentenced to seven years in prison for the crime.
Which that is, I mean, she committed armed robbery.
Yeah.
She did.
That's just, you know.
Think of how crazy that is, though.
She is the heiress to one of the richest families in the entire world.
And she's serving seven years for armed robbery.
For armed robbery.
And actually, it's funny.
I was talking to Ma about this because Ma was like 20, in her like early 20s when this all happened.
Yeah.
And I said, I was like, do you remember like when this was happening?
And she did.
She was like, oh, we were all very invested in this.
Oh, that's so crazy.
Isn't that funny?
Yeah.
Ma said she had just had kids, but like her and Papa would watch it on the news.
And I was like, what did you think?
And she said, she was like, we didn't know what to think if she had been brainwashed or not.
Which I think is the right answer to be honest because I wasn't there.
I'm not there and I'm not her.
She did go through a ton of shit in the beginning and it's like there was brainwashing no matter what.
I think so too.
Whether she eventually felt like she was doing the right thing or not and was actively involved.
There was a level of brainwashing regardless.
So again two things can be true.
She could have been completely traumatized, which she was yeah, i mean, she was sexually assaulted in the beginning, there too, held in the dark blindfolded, treated like a prisoner, yep.
And then it's like so that can be true, that's traumatizing, that's brainwashing, that's fucked up.
The above, all of the above, can't even imagine it.
And then she could have also realized i'm into this and decided to actively participate.
So they both could have been true, Agreed.
But again, I think my opinion of it is, I don't know.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I think a lot of people share that opinion.
And I think it's actually a pretty valid opinion.
Yeah, like a wise opinion.
That's the thing.
None of us were there.
I wanted to say an intelligent opinion, but that didn't sound right.
A wise opinion because we weren't there.
I don't have any similar experience.
No, luckily I can't draw on my experience, so so I don't know.
But it was just interesting to talk to Ma about because I was like oh, that's weird that like you tuned into the news when this was massive news.
I know that is crazy, yeah.
But anyway, if Patty seemed overwhelmed and run down in the lead up to and during this first trial, it was probably because, in addition to preparing for that trial, she was also involved in ongoing interrogations by the FBI about the Crocker Bank robbery and now the murder of Myrna Opsal.
They knew that the SLA was responsible for both of these things, but they hadn't been able to locate specific individuals.
And actually, they couldn't even connect Bill and Emily Harris at all to the crimes.
So instead they focused their attention on Steve Salia, who they incorrectly believed was the man guarding the door during the robbery.
But if you remember, Steve wasn't even part of that robbery.
He was part of the SLA, but he hadn't been there at Crocker Bank that day.
Oh, shit.
So during the interrogations, Patty was entirely compliant at this point and she was very honest.
She insisted and was truthful, saying Steve hadn't been at Crocker Bank that day and he actually hadn't been involved in any of the other crimes either.
Damn.
But unfortunately also at that time, she had lost all credibility.
And they didn't really believe anything she was telling them.
So instead, the prosecutor forged ahead with their case against Steve Celaya and based on a witness identification, of all things.
Oh, no.
Kathleen James, who was a bookkeeper for Crocker Bank and was there that day, said when you go through a robbery like that and look a man in the face, you don't forget.
I mean, which I understand you probably feel that way.
For sure.
But obviously it's possible because Steve wasn't there that day.
Witness identifications are notoriously shaky.
Yeah.
Because we're just human.
Yeah.
So it's like it's nobody's fault.
It's just...
Well, and also, remember, they were all wearing ski masks.
Well, and a lot of people, especially at that time, with like the style and everything.
A lot of them probably looked alike.
Yeah, they look similar.
You know, they have similar hairstyles.
They have similar facial hair or anything like that.
They're dressed the same.
Same kind of features.
It's like it's easy to do.
That's why you got to take it with a grain of salt, though.
And even in a case like that, you're also seeing minimal features at that point because somebody's wearing a fucking ski mask.
Exactly.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
But in April of 1976 Steve Saliah ended up going on trial for not only the robbery, but that's where the murder took place.
So he was facing murder charges too.
Wow.
And he wasn't even there.
He wasn't even there.
Holy shit.
And the crazy thing is that this went forward to trial with the prosecutor's best evidence being a grainy photograph and one eyewitness identification.
Oh, which is nuts damn, and also you can.
You're probably not going to be shocked to hear one, because you heard this, but if you haven't before.
The entire case pretty much fell apart within a week or so because the man in the photograph believed to be steve turned out to be another person entirely who just looked like him.
Yeah which, like you said, people looked very similar back.
Yeah, styles and everything.
Yeah, like the hairstyle was like.
Especially with men, it's like they all had that same like bushy hair.
Yes, the 70s.
You know, the facial hair.
Yeah.
So on April 28th, the jury voted unanimously to acquit Steve Saliah, thankfully, of all charges.
And the jury's foreman, Joanne Parker, said it was a weak case.
The evidence just wasn't there.
Wow.
So embarrassed by how badly they had botched the Salaya case, and now, lacking any and all evidence to connect the other members to the Crocker Bank robbery, the Sacramento District Attorney just chose not to pursue any more charges against anyone else.
And so they all went free and clear for robbing the Crocker Bank and also murdering Myrna Opsal.
Holy shit.
Which is bullshit.
Yeah, that's wild.
A few months later though, on September 29th, Bill and Emily, being the only original members of the SLA, pleaded guilty to kidnapping Patty Hearst, and they were sentenced to eight years in prison.
Oh, wow.
So everybody's going downtown.
It's going down.
Going downtown, Charlie Brown.
So in January of 1979, after two years of lobbying from the extremely powerful and well-connected Hearst family, President Jimmy Carter ended up commuting Patty's sentence after she had served a little over two years.
Here's the thing.
I think that's bullshit.
I think wealth and privilege might have gone into that decision.
Wealth and privilege is all you can accredit that to.
That's my feeling, at least.
Can you imagine being the other members and being like, fuck you, you joined us?
Are you kidding me?
Come on.
What the hell?
But on February 1st, 1979, Patty Hearst walked out of federal prison a completely free woman.
Wow.
And she made a really, in my opinion, ignorant statement to the press.
Oh, good.
She said let's unpack that you just got.
Let's unpack that you were given such a gift here and that's what you've been touched by an angel girl like that's what you choose to say.
I've done an awful lot of things, some of them unusual.
Unusual did you not spend any time in prison looking up fucking synonyms for the word unusual?
You shot a, an automatic weapon, into a sporting goods store without a second thought of who could have been in there.
That's beyond unusual.
Like that's not unusual.
That's fucking reckless and dangerous and violent, regardless of whether you're brainwashed or not.
You were alone in a car with a set of keys and you chose to shoot into a sporting goods store and possibly kill children in there Yup.
Not that anybody's life is worth more than the other, but it's like, you don't know who's in there.
No.
And then to say I've learned an awful lot about people?
Like, that's not good.
Baby, I want to hear that you've learned about yourself.
That is not good.
And that you've learned about wrong and right.
Yeah.
And morals and justice.
That would be sick to hear.
Like...
Honestly, at that point, just don't even fucking say anything.
I'd be like, you know what?
Say something better or shut the fuck up.
If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.
That was not nice.
No.
That was just not nice, my friend.
Well, and here's the thing.
Obviously, the Hearst family was happy and Patty's supporters were overjoyed.
But to the family and friends of Myrna Opsal, who had gotten absolutely no justice at all.
Yeah, that's a slap in the face.
Exactly.
It was a slap in the fucking face.
So in the years after she was released from prison, Patty ended up marrying her former bodyguard, Bernard Shaw.
That does not sound real.
I said to Ma, I was like, yeah, and like she ended up marrying her bodyguard.
And Ma said, I remember that.
It was very weird.
It was very weird.
She was like, it was very strange.
Like weird.
She was like, it was just like crazy news.
Yeah, like just like what?
It doesn't sound real.
Yeah.
And they went on to have two kids together.
Wow, okay.
Patty eventually did confirm the widely held belief that she had only participated in the SLA activities out of fear for her own safety.
And that was a claim she repeated in her memoir, which was called Every Secret Thing and published in 1981.
And it was in that same book that Patty revealed for the very first time who it was that had shot Myrna Opsal.
Oh.
She revealed that it was Emily Harris.
Damn.
Since then, it seems like she used her inheritance and her time well.
Yeah, it does seem like it.
She turned things around.
So I will say, as annoyed as I was at that statement, at least she did some good.
Hey, that's all you can ask.
Yeah, she supported a lot of causes, including the AIDS crisis.
She donated to a lot of children's charities.
She also has done acting.
She's...
I didn't even realize this.
She's been in John Waters movies.
That's wild.
Yeah.
And also just like random TV shows.
That's real wild.
Yeah.
I shouldn't even say random TV shows, just like TV shows in general.
I don't want to sound like an asshole.
I'm sure she's been on good ones.
But here's the thing.
Back to Myrna Opsal, because the injustice that her family experienced is wild.
Yeah.
But they were undeterred to get justice for their mother.
Good for them.
Yeah.
John Opsall and his siblings were not content to let their mom just be like a footnote in the Patty Hearst story and like another wealthy American.
So instead they kept pushing law enforcement to keep the case active and continue to pursue whoever was responsible here.
But the problem was that those who were actually responsible for the murder and the robbery had kind of disappeared entirely without a trace, because nobody was ever involved, ever brought in and, like you know, like they never pinpointed exact people in this.
But that was until the story aired on a 1999 episode of America's Most Wanted.
They ended up showing mug shots on that program and they aged them and showed them.
Which I think is so cool when they do that.
Yeah, that's interesting.
And it works a lot of the time, at least some of the time.
After the show aired, somebody from St.
Paul Minnesota called.
Called the hotline from America's Most Wanted and told the operator they were not totally positive, but they did think that the image of Kathy Celaya looked a lot like their neighbor Sarah Jane Olsen.
Sarah Jane.
So, local police paid a visit to one Sarah Jane Olsen.
Uh-oh, Sarah Jane.
Who was living with her husband, a well-respected doctor in the area.
This fucking... I... when you told when i we did recorded this for the first time i wish we had my reaction i know but my mic was fucking but i lost it at this because i was like oh you mean a bourgeois pig yeah who deserves to die and it sounds like you would think that you do because you married one isn't that it wasn't that the logic that you were all working with is it not the pot calling the kettle black like holy shit glass house how are you doing sarah jane sarah jane that pissed me off in a way i could not describe no it's the hypocrisy is rancid and it's like over there you just after like terrorizing the state of california and being present for the murder of a woman yeah you just after talking shit about said woman who you killed You married a doctor and just settled in St.
Paul, Minnesota and went on to have children and live a regular life, like a nice life.
Exactly what you were raging against.
Isn't that it?
Yeah.
Interesting.
Wow.
Shocking.
And we're so mad because it was confirmed that Sarah Jane Olsen she confessed she was in fact Kathy Salaya, a former member of the SLA.
Damn.
Which also she had three daughters at that point, teenage daughters.
I can't imagine being them.
Yeah, I can't imagine finding that out.
I mean, like, you did what?
Excuse me?
Your name is, like, you just lied to me my whole fucking life?
Well, that's, that would, yeah, I feel for them.
Like, you don't even know your mom's real name?
That's... a whole mess of stuff you're going to have to work through.
Yeah, and that's shitty and awful to do to somebody.
So in the summer of 1999 now, Kathy slash Sarah was charged with conspiracy to commit murder for placing those bombs underneath police cars in San Francisco.
Yikes.
And she was also charged with attempting to ignite an explosive with intent to murder.
She was literally going to murder a bunch of police officers.
Yes.
Now, given how much time had passed, the prosecutor was kind of skeptical that they were going to get any kind of conviction.
So Kathy Sarah was offered in that's all I can think to call her to make it less confusing.
She was offered and she accepted a plea deal where she pleaded guilty to two counts of possessing explosives with intent to murder and they dropped the other charges.
That plea carried a sentence of around three years in prison.
Let me just quickly remind you what she accepted the plea deal to.
Two counts of possessing explosives with intent to murder.
Holy shit.
Three years?
That's shocking.
Hello?
Yeah.
Is this thing on?
However, almost immediately after accepting her deal, Kathy Sarah started claiming publicly that she was innocent and she only accepted the deal to protect everybody else from back then.
So a few months later she petitioned the court to allow her to withdraw her plea and in the fall of 2001, she went on trial.
So she completely removed her plea.
What a shitty dice to roll.
Yeah, it was.
Again, I wish we had our first recording because, even not knowing how it turned out, I was like oh, that's not going to go well.
It sure didn't.
Bad dice roll.
It went the worst that it possibly could have too, because her trial judge was the same judge who had signed off on her plea deal.
That's pretty poetic.
Pretty poetic.
And he was pretty fucking frustrated and disappointed that she'd been lying to his face on several occasions.
Yeah.
So, yeah, the gamble on a trial did not pay off.
In January of 2002, Kathy Sarah was sentenced to 10 years to life.
That's different.
She could have just served three years in prison for something she had done, like many, many years ago.
10 years to life.
Instead, she decided to be a fucking asshole.
Like...
Now it's safe to assume that Kathy Sarah was pretty disappointed with the outcome of all that, but it turned out that that was just the beginning of her problems.
The arrest of a one-time SLA member, Kathy Sarah, was exactly what investigators needed to take another look at Myrna Opsal's murder case.
Fortunately and somewhat surprisingly, the FBI located a trove of evidence that the Sacramento District Attorney's Office had previously claimed they didn't have.
Back when they were trying Steve for all of this.
Huh.
Among that evidence was money taken from the Crocker bank robbery, a large number of guns, including the shotgun and the pellets that were used to kill Myrna, and a significant amount of fingerprint evidence that linked Kathy slash, Sarah Mike Borton, James Kilgore, Bill Harris and Emily Harris to the robbery and the murder.
Huh, interesting that that was just like.
Oh, we just found this hello.
Yeah like, where was that all what was going on there?
It was like you guys really wanted to pin that on steve huh allegedly, allegedly so.
In february of 2003 uh, bill harris, emily harris, mike borton and kathy sarah pleaded guilty to the robbery of crocker bank and uh for the murder of myrna obsol, And they each received between six and eight years in prison.
Oof.
And they finally in court accepted responsibility for their actions.
And they did apologize to the Opsal family.
But obviously that didn't bring their mother or their wife or their sister or their friend back.
No.
And James Kilgore was eventually found in Cape Town, South Africa later that year.
He was extradited to the US and he also pleaded guilty to the charges, but he served his time.
He served six years and was released on parole.
Damn.
But every single person ended up facing actual consequences.
Whew.
I never saw that coming.
Whether it took years or not, they all ended up serving prison time.
Yeah, that's... Which is poetic justice.
That really is.
Because any kind, like, you just wanted some kind of consequences here.
Yeah, I mean, like even Patty serving two years, I don't think it's necessarily fair that she got her sentence commuted.
But I think that's also really complicated when you get into the brainwashing of it all.
So I'll leave that where it is.
But just the fact that everybody else did end up serving time.
At least had to serve some time for it.
It's like you did commit crimes.
You know what I mean?
You do the crime, you do the time.
Yeah, and people died as a result.
It's not like these were petty crimes that didn't end up with people being hurt.
No, people got hurt and a woman ended up killed.
Yeah.
And I'm glad that her family got the justice they deserved.
And good for them for never giving up.
Yeah.
Because like we say, a cold case is never cold.
It's true.
It's never cold.
You can always warm it up in the microwave.
True.
And they did that.
They did.
You just keep going.
You just keep going.
Just don't leave it in the microwave.
Take it out.
Yeah.
So that's it.
That's Patty Hearst.
What an interesting, interesting story.
It really is because I never knew, like obviously I knew who Patty Hearst was and everything, but I did not know all the nitty gritty.
Same.
And I didn't know like even just like the weird things like not weird, but just like random things that she like married her bodyguard.
Yeah, I didn't know any of that stuff.
I thought it was kind of iconic that she outed Emily in the book.
Yeah, that was wild.
She's like, she's already in prison.
Well, and the truth is the truth.
The truth is the truth.
It just is what it is.
Fascinating case for sure.
And Myrna Opsal's family deserved to know who pulled the trigger.
Absolutely, they did.
Yeah.
And America's Most Wanted forever.
Yeah, truly.
Come on.
Damn.
And it was also just really cool to talk to Ma.
Yeah, about that stuff.
Like about being like, hey, do you remember this?
And she was like, hell yeah, I do.
Hell yeah, I remember Patty.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And at least she, you know, at least she's, you know, seems to be trying to repent.
Yeah, she definitely did.
Like helping her life in crisis and children's charities and everything.
It's really all you can ask is growth.
Well, that's all you can do, you know.
That's literally all you can do.
All you can do is grow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And we'll keep growing because that's all we can do.
And you guys too.
Yeah, keep growing as an audience.
And we hope you keep listening.
And we hope you keep it weird.
But not so weird that you record a podcast for eight years and you forget to plug your fucking microphone in.
Ugh.
Thank you.
